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Easy Search

Enter your search term (s) in the box to conduct a search on the full bibliographic record (which is all available indexed fields.) This does not search the full text.  To search for a phrase, enter it in double-quotes.  Boolean operators can also be used within the query box for broadening or narrowing search terms.  For more details on structuring a search, see the "Additional Tips" section.  You can select a field and order in which to sort the results by clicking on sort by drop box and clicking on a field.  Then choose the order of ascending or descending.  The default is set to publication date in descending order.  Other options for sorting are relevance, system entry date, resource/document type, title, research organization, sponsoring organization, and OSTI identifier.  Click on the "Search" button to start the search.  Note that with the large number of records in ETDEWEB, it is strongly recommended that you enter very specific search terms for the most targeted and fastest results possible.

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Advanced Search

Sorting

Your search results will be sorted in ascending or descending order based on your "Sort By" selection. The default is Publication Date in descending order.  Other options for sorting are relevance, system entry date, resource/document type, title, research organization, sponsoring organization, and OSTI identifier.  Searching by relevance normally gives faster results, but may rank older records higher than newer records.

Term Searches

Enter your search criteria into as few or as many fields as desired. To search for a phrase, enter it in double-quotes.  Click on the "Search" button to start the search.  Multiple words entered as search terms must all appear in the record/full text in order to be returned in the search results, or, in other words, an implicit AND is added between each term.  Also, if search terms are entered for more than one field on the "advanced search" page, these search criteria are also connected with an implicit AND.  For example, a search of "bibliographic data" containing IEA and "title" containing hydro will find records where both hydro is somewhere in the title and IEA is somewhere in the bibliographic record.  For more details on structuring a search, see the "Additional Tips" section.  Field choices are:

  1. All Fields, which searches all the fields in the bibliographic citation (does not include full-text pages)
  2. Bibliographic Data, which searches all the fields in the bibliographic citation
  3. Full Text, which searches indexed full text
  4. Creator/Author
  5. Title
  6. Abstract
  7. Subject
  8. Identifier numbers, which searches all the number fields, including the identifier, the report number(s), the contract number, and other numbers
  9. Research Organization
  10. Sponsoring Organization

Author Select

While you can always enter an author name in the search box, another feature allows you to choose a specific author's full name and its variations.  The author select tool assists in identifying variation(s) of an author's name and identifying multiple authors.  Selected author(s) are 'submitted' to the Advanced Search.  To use this tool, click on the "Select" button next to the "creator/author" field from "advanced search".  

In the first column called "author select", type in a name, or the first few letters of a name, in the last name and/or first name search boxes.  Then, select "Go".  An attempt will be made to match authors that most closely relate to the text you typed.

In the second column called "authors", a list of matches appears.  Click on the "add all" and/or "add" button(s) beside the name(s) you wish to include in your search.  Your selections will appear in the third column called "selection list".  

From the "selection list" column, you can remove items from the selection by clicking on the "remove" button beside the items you wish to remove.  You can clear your entire list by clicking on "clear your list!" link.

To search for the authors in your list, click on the "submit" button.  Selected authors appear on the "advanced search" in the "creator/author" search box with an "or" operator.  You can edit the field if necessary.  Click on "search" to submit the search.

Note that sometimes no records will be retrieved when using the author select tool.  This occurs because the author select tool operates from an index of all authors in the site's database, some of which are not available through ETDEWEB.

Limit To

You may limit your search results by entering "publication year(s)" and/or by selecting a pre-defined "resource/document type", "publication country", and/or "language" from the Drop-down menus.  "All" is the default for each of the limit-to drop-down menus.  "Resource/document types" available in the system for limiting searches are all, book, conference, journal article, miscellaneous, patent, patent application, software manual, technical report, or thesis/dissertation.

Date Searches

Date searches can be done using the "publication year". A numeric four-digit year should be entered in the "from" and "to" year boxes. To search for one specific year, enter the same date in the "from" and "to" date boxes.

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Search Results

View Results

Download or View Individual Citations

Availability

When full text is available, a full-text indicator is provided.  The full text may be accessed via a link to the document and/or to the originating source and/or through a DOI.  In general, when full text is not available electronically, availability information may be found on the "bibliographic citation" page in the "availability", "publisher", "creator/author", "research organization", and/or "resource relation" fields. This information may be helpful in obtaining a copy of the full-text document. Additional information and a current list of document centers for full-text literature is made available by ETDE.

Download or View Multiple Citations

Download or View Full Text

View or Search Individual Full Text Pages

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Federated Search

Searching Federated Sources

The ETDEWEB Federated Search allows you to search ETDEWEB along with other external sources of interest simultaneously with consolidated results. Some sources may search multiple databases. Such is the case with Science.gov and Science Conference Proceedings. To do a federated search, simply type in your key word(s), like wastewater treatment (no need for quotes, we phrase-search by default in federated searches), select the sources to search, and select "Search". Remember, you can select specific sources to search, or query all of them at once by selecting "All".

The progress bar will time out in 5 minutes. This means that if a particular database is running slow, you may not get all those results during that search session. Also, be as specific as possible with your search terms so that searches return swift and pertinent results.

Viewing Federated Search Results

Unlike many search engines, our results are retrieved in real time, so it could take a minute, especially since ETDEWEB results are additionally screened to get those with more recent publication dates. Total number of search results may be restricted by the database. Select the individual source to go directly to that site.

Results are ranked by default into relevancy clusters, or grouped in a way most likely to match your search query using QuickRank™. Our special QuickRank formula filters results, sending you the most relevant returns. This means that the number of QuickRank returns may differ from the number of raw returns from the individual source listing, which aren't filtered by QuickRank. Results will be returned in relevancy clusters: very high relevancy indicates very high relevancy, high relevancy indicates high relevancy, medium relevancy indicates medium high relevancy, low relevancy indicates low relevancy. Our QuickRank filter is based on placement of key words. If your key word is not in a prime location in the record, likely the result won't be ranked. Your results will contain top tier sources in terms of relevancy.

If you want to see your results listed by the source rather than by relevancy, select the "Results by Source" button. If your search only returns three (3) or fewer ranked results, we'll send you directly to our "Results by Source". You can also select the "More" button to explore deeper into each source's results.

Results are linked to expanded information. Select the linked title or PDF logo PDF to view a specific record or document, or select the checkboxes of items you wish to view. (Note: full text may not be available for every record.)

You can explore your results on the Marked Records page. "Mark All" selects all your results for further viewing on our "Marked Records" page. "List Marks" presents a seamless, scrollable list of expanded results you marked during the current session. From the Marked Records page, a PDF logo PDF indicates a PDF is available for that result. "Clear Marks" will delete all previous marks. Use this on a routine basis to erase marked items from the session. Records are not automatically cleared after viewing. "Previous Page" sends you back to the previous page. You can also submit searches from the results page.

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Additional Tips

Case Sensitivity

Queries conducted in this system are case insensitive.  A term entered in either upper case, lower case, or mixed case will match terms that are in upper case, lower case, and/or mixed case.

Drop-down Pick Lists

To assist you in formulating queries, drop-down pick lists have been created for select fields.  Drop-down pick lists are lists of standardized values that are valid for a particular field.  You can select one value from the drop-down pick list.  To select one, click on the value you want included in the your query.  

Number Searching

For bibliographic citation fields, the best search results can be obtained by entering numbers without any punctuation or spaces.  Numbers are not specifically indexed/available for searches in the full text.  Although some numbers may be searchable if they are surrounded by delimiters such as parenthesis, full text searching for numbers is not recommended.

Wildcards

Using a wildcard allows you to search for terms with the same prefix or stem. 

Phrase/Adjacent Term Searching

Boolean

Show Another Field

From the "search results" page, you can show an additional field in the results listing by choosing the desired field in the "show" drop-down box on clicking on the "go" button.  The additional fields available to show are OSTI Identifier, Report Number, DOE Contract Number, Other Identifier Number, Document Type, Specific Type, Resource Relation, Research Organization, Sponsoring Organization, Subject, Related Subject, Publisher, Country, Language, Format, Rights, Source, Availability, Entry Date, or DOI.

Find More By This Author

In the "search results" page and the "bibliographic citation" page, each author is hyperlinked so that, when selected, a search is conducted for the selected author.  The author search is the same as if you had conducted a phrase search on "creator/author" from the "advanced search" screen.  For example, if you select the "Smith, John" hyperlink, it will provide you with the same search results as when you conduct an "advanced search" on "creator/author" for "Smith, John".

EndNote Library Downloads

Printer-friendly Version

From the "search results" page and the "bibliographic citation" page, you can select and print a "printer-friendly version" of the current page by clicking on that option.  

Refine Your Search

From the "search results" page, you can refine your search by clicking the "refine search" button which takes you to the "advanced search" page.  This page will reflect your current search strategy which you can modify and re-submit as a refined search.

Alert Tips

Language Translation Tools

Because abstracts and full-text documents are provided in a number of different languages and because ETDEWEB has an International user base, ETDE has provided a list of links to free language translation tools that you may find useful.

Also, for additional information about language translation, see the sources below.

Federated Search Tips

Registration/User Profile

The following fields define the "User Registration" and "Update Profile" pages. Initial values are assigned when a system account is set up, but can be changed by the user at any time by selecting "Update Profile" when logged on from the menu.  Required fields are in red and marked with an asterisk.

Be sure to click on the "register" button at the bottom of the "User Registration" page or the "update" button at the bottom of "Update Profile" page when you are finished. Your changes will then be posted.

The fields on the "User Registration" and "User Profile" pages are:

User Name - User name must be unique to the system so please choose carefully. A message will appear after you submit if the user name is not available for you to use.  Simply choose another user name.  Maximum of 30 characters is allowed.  The user name cannot be changed by the user after the account is set up.  User name is case-sensitive. 

Password & Confirm Password [PASSWORD EXAMPLE: Pass12worD] - Password should contain a minimum of 8 non-blank characters with at least 2 numbers. Password is case-sensitive. The user can change his or her password at any time through the User Profile screen. To change the password, type in the new password and confirm, and it will be effective the next time you log into the system.

EMail - Email must be provided so the administrator can notify you when your registration is approved.  If you do not have email, please put "None" in the field and you will be notified via regular mail when approved.

Registration Country - When registering, registration country must be selected.  Registration country cannot be changed by the user after the account is set up.

The remaining personal information fields can be changed at any time through the Update Profile page.  

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Technical Requirements

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